This all started when I purchased new wheels. The company I bought them from suggested a +42 offset for the speed6, and although I thought this wasn't high enough, I deferred to their expertise. That was a mistake. I ended up with 19x7.5 +42 offset wheels with 235/35 tires. At first no problem until my wife came home and told me that she heard the tires rub. SInce I want to lower the car a little and use my back seat freely, I had to get this rubbing taken care of. I spent a day calling around trying to find a shop to roll my fenders because I didn't want to spend the $250.00 for the tool. I found one shop that said they could do it but when I took it in they said it would take them 8 hours to do 2 fenders at $45/hr. I left quickly in case whatever mental disease they must have had was contagious. I found another body shop that said he would do it for $40/fender and assured me he had the right tool for the job, so I gave in and had him do it. Turns out that he just hammered away at my fender with some pneumatic tool ( I would have preferred a baseball bat to that!) and only rolled the top of the fenders a little but assured me that it would not rub, and if it did, just bring it back. Here's a picture of about how much he did.
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It might have even been the very next day that my wife, who didn't want me to get the wheels in the first place, comes home in a bad mood. The wheel rubbed again when she was turning a corner and this time actually bent the fender.
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After this I broke down and bought the tool from eastwood, borrowed a heat gun from a friend and decided to take it on myself. Yes I read the write-up at mazda6tech.com and no I've never done anything like this before.
As I start to get ready to do the work, I realize that the shop that rolled my fenders forgot to put the keys for my wheel locks back in my car so I had to waste an hour and a half going to his shop to pick them up. When I called him to ask if he had them I told him that the car was still rubbing so I had to buy the fender rolling tool to do it right. He asked me, " Did the tool work?" "Gee, I don't know, I CAN"T GET MY WHEELS OFF!"
Once started, I was relieved to find the tool easy to figure out, even for me. After removing the wheel you are supposed to install the plate of the roller right to where the wheel mounts. Then put on the 5 provided washers which are about 1/4 inch thick and shaped in a way that your lug nuts will fit inside of them to hold the roller in place. Once I had it all installed and got started I realized that the rolling tool did not clear the brake caliper . So I had to remove it and put the washers behind the plate of the roller giving another 1/4" of clearance, enough to clear. Then I started heating and rolling.
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I focused first on the dent area.
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Once that was back to normal I continued with the rest giving as much roll as I could going slow and doing small sections at a time.
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Things were finally going smoothly and mistakenly, I started thinking my problems were over when, halfway through the first fender, the roller breaks!!! The bolt on the back which holds the tension came flying off, busting the cotter pin, causing me to lose all pressure. I put the bolt back on but had to keep tightening it to keep it from coming off. This turned out to be very annoying.
Towards the rear of the fender where the metal meets the (plastic?), I ran into more troubles :irate:. It seemed like the metal was moving slightly upward with the roll and separating from the plastic. So I slowed down a lot and heated it up well to try to make it more pliable. The problem came when I accidently touched the plastic, which was hot, peeling the paint right off :doh:.
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Be careful with the heat especially in this area!! The reason I say this is because the other side was even worse! I was really careful not to touch the other side after what happened, but the stupid broken tool slipped and folded up the hot pliable plastic corner like an accordion! To say I was upset is a colossal understatement. I couldn't even imagine how to fix it so I just continued on and finished the job.
Once I got the wheels back on, I wanted to be sure that there would be no rubbing. So into the trunk went 64 liters of water, the jack which must have weighed 70 lbs., an air compressor, 530 pounds of weights, and me pushing down.
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Once it was weighed down I felt the spacing between the fender and the wheel and was able to fit my fingers between them. The only problem area remaining might be on the drivers side where the metal and plastic meet. the metal has a corner there that is a pain to bend and although I was able to bend it smooth on the passenger side, once the tool slipped and messed up the plastic I avoided that area on the drivers side. It does seem like the car will bottom out before rubbing there though.
This is the view looking up before I started.
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And this is after.
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After a few days of driving I've had no rubbing at all. I'm still not sure what to do about the messed up corners but thankfully it doesn't stand out, you really have to look for the blemishes.
It might have even been the very next day that my wife, who didn't want me to get the wheels in the first place, comes home in a bad mood. The wheel rubbed again when she was turning a corner and this time actually bent the fender.
After this I broke down and bought the tool from eastwood, borrowed a heat gun from a friend and decided to take it on myself. Yes I read the write-up at mazda6tech.com and no I've never done anything like this before.
As I start to get ready to do the work, I realize that the shop that rolled my fenders forgot to put the keys for my wheel locks back in my car so I had to waste an hour and a half going to his shop to pick them up. When I called him to ask if he had them I told him that the car was still rubbing so I had to buy the fender rolling tool to do it right. He asked me, " Did the tool work?" "Gee, I don't know, I CAN"T GET MY WHEELS OFF!"
Once started, I was relieved to find the tool easy to figure out, even for me. After removing the wheel you are supposed to install the plate of the roller right to where the wheel mounts. Then put on the 5 provided washers which are about 1/4 inch thick and shaped in a way that your lug nuts will fit inside of them to hold the roller in place. Once I had it all installed and got started I realized that the rolling tool did not clear the brake caliper . So I had to remove it and put the washers behind the plate of the roller giving another 1/4" of clearance, enough to clear. Then I started heating and rolling.
I focused first on the dent area.
Once that was back to normal I continued with the rest giving as much roll as I could going slow and doing small sections at a time.
Things were finally going smoothly and mistakenly, I started thinking my problems were over when, halfway through the first fender, the roller breaks!!! The bolt on the back which holds the tension came flying off, busting the cotter pin, causing me to lose all pressure. I put the bolt back on but had to keep tightening it to keep it from coming off. This turned out to be very annoying.
Towards the rear of the fender where the metal meets the (plastic?), I ran into more troubles :irate:. It seemed like the metal was moving slightly upward with the roll and separating from the plastic. So I slowed down a lot and heated it up well to try to make it more pliable. The problem came when I accidently touched the plastic, which was hot, peeling the paint right off :doh:.
Be careful with the heat especially in this area!! The reason I say this is because the other side was even worse! I was really careful not to touch the other side after what happened, but the stupid broken tool slipped and folded up the hot pliable plastic corner like an accordion! To say I was upset is a colossal understatement. I couldn't even imagine how to fix it so I just continued on and finished the job.
Once I got the wheels back on, I wanted to be sure that there would be no rubbing. So into the trunk went 64 liters of water, the jack which must have weighed 70 lbs., an air compressor, 530 pounds of weights, and me pushing down.
Once it was weighed down I felt the spacing between the fender and the wheel and was able to fit my fingers between them. The only problem area remaining might be on the drivers side where the metal and plastic meet. the metal has a corner there that is a pain to bend and although I was able to bend it smooth on the passenger side, once the tool slipped and messed up the plastic I avoided that area on the drivers side. It does seem like the car will bottom out before rubbing there though.
This is the view looking up before I started.
And this is after.
After a few days of driving I've had no rubbing at all. I'm still not sure what to do about the messed up corners but thankfully it doesn't stand out, you really have to look for the blemishes.
And in some parts of the world the car would be too wide to go down some streets, or would we be willing to pay a premium to have different fender stampings?
